SWOT
Strengths:
-3D Modelling
-Texturing
-Unwrapping
-Desire to make things look professional
-Easy to adapt to different software
-Animation
-Rigging
Weaknesses:
-Not a good social speaker
-Only really know how to use Blender
-Digital drawing (I'm okay but would like to get better)
Opportunities:
-Game Jams
-Collaborations with Course mates
-Unity and Unreal are now free
-Devon Digital Meetups
-Virtual Reality
Threats :
-
Strengths:
-3D Modelling
-Texturing
-Unwrapping
-Desire to make things look professional
-Easy to adapt to different software
-Animation
-Rigging
Weaknesses:
-Not a good social speaker
-Only really know how to use Blender
-Digital drawing (I'm okay but would like to get better)
Opportunities:
-Game Jams
-Collaborations with Course mates
-Unity and Unreal are now free
-Devon Digital Meetups
-Virtual Reality
Threats :
-
Things I'd like to improve on:
-Digital Drawing Skills.
-Unity/Unreal, Including coding.
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-Digital Drawing Skills.
-Unity/Unreal, Including coding.
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Hopefully, once I've finished with the course, I would like to be a 3D environmental artist, specifically Architectural. I enjoy Designing buildings and generally enjoy making hard edged models. I figured this out a few years ago and since then, I've been practicing creating and designing buildings and scenes to go with them. Over the holiday between the first and second years, I worked on a large suspension bridge, and a scene to go with it.
In the future I plan on making a city block (Which could be what I do for year three), with different designs of buildings and skyscrapers. I also plan on putting it into Unity and make it an intractable level. I want to do this because in the past I've make buildings, but I've never put those buildings into a world that I was happy with and felt that they existed there.
I would also like to work on other stuff not related to buildings, like vehicles or animals. This is because I don't want all my expertise to be only on hard edged models. (Though for year two I worked on some characters.) |
I started to work on making a space station, similar to the ISS. Trying to add as much small detail in, like bolts and panels. I had to stop once the course work had started, but It's still there if I want to work on it some more. I like how well the little details work, I used a lot of reference material from real life space stations. |
So far the Suspension Bridge scene has been my largest project that I've worked on. The model of the bridge itself has over 2 million polygons, and the scene itself too about 46 hours to render and 10500x5096 pixels. The scene was also my first where I had made a vehicle, in this case a vessel and a tanker, both of which were low poly. I think that these vehicles worked well with the scene, I didn't waste time making them overly detailed as they wouldn't be seen close up. Although thinking about it I probably could have made more ships, giving it a busy port feel. But having the main focus be on the bridge itself, I felt like two would do. The water itself I am very proud of, at first I had used an ocean modifier that Blender has built it. But that had a lot of polygons. Too many for my computer to render. So I decided to instead and a plane and use normal maps for the water instead which gave the same effect, but at a way cheaper cost in render time.
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The Job I Want In the Industry
When in the industry I would like to be a 3D environment artist. I want this kind of job because I mainly enjoy making buildings, and other hard edged scenery. This job could either be within a big company, freelance, or an Indie company. Though I would prefer it to be in an Indie company because that was I will have more of an impact on the games/projects we make.
When in the industry I would like to be a 3D environment artist. I want this kind of job because I mainly enjoy making buildings, and other hard edged scenery. This job could either be within a big company, freelance, or an Indie company. Though I would prefer it to be in an Indie company because that was I will have more of an impact on the games/projects we make.
For the first part of the group projects, I worked on making a ruined Colosseum. Where I had to mix my usual comfort of the snap grid with getting models to accurately fit around an oval shape. At first I wasn't sure of how I was going to pull it off, but I figured I would take it one step at a time, adding in placeholders for where the struts (That would hold up the seating levels) would go, evenly places around the walls. After that I replaced the placeholders with the proper struts and added some ruined details. |
The next step was to figure out how to get the holes into the walls evenly. I did this by coping one that I had made on the wall, and used snapping vertices to vertices, then rotating the selection from that vertices, so the new wall was inline with the old one and deleted the old one. I did the for the rest of the holes, making sure to only do it on the walls that the player would see, to save on polygons. I'm pretty proud with what I achieved by doing this, having using the same technique for getting the seating level attached to the struts. The effect gave the model more interest, without being overly complicated.
So this year I'd like to learning how to use Unity to make games (Both 2D and 3D) instead of Construct 2. So I'll have to start learning how to write in C# properly. Currently I've found a few tutorials on YouTube on how to get started. These should also help out with level and character design, I would like to be able to get animated characters into Unity as playable characters, and to even find out how to add interactivity, like doors and/or switches. I also have an idea of using Blender to rig and animate 2D sprites and render them out through the isometric perspective. Or even to export them as a 3D model and importing into Unity, as this maybe lower the file size and would be easier to edit in Unity.(Plus you could probably make it smooth as Unity uses Keyframes.) |
During the first year of the course, I worked on a game called 'Dwarf Wizards' using Construct 2, and of which I was very proud of. I decided that after the year was done I would continue working on it. I started working on a boss level, I wanted the boss to be a large character so I designed and made an Ogre using both Photoshop and Spriter(sprite animation software). Once I added the Ogre into Construct, I found that the image files were too large and that Constuct 2 would only be able to have one of these bosses effectively.
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For character creation we had to create at least three characters. This was my first real attempt at creating 3D characters. I studied the proper topology, elbow joints and the upper chest that attaches to the arms and neck. After I created the ape, I decided to create a fourth character that would work for atmospheric purposes. I feel that I did pretty well with making these characters, giving that they were my very first. The topology worked well when rigging and skinning, Although I could have made the fingers better. |
Today we got a lesson in how to animate things in Unity, like moving a box up and down, or moving the camera. This should come in real handy when creating my final level within Unity, as most of my level could be made intractable with this. Also considering my previous history in animation and key-framing, I know how to make it look professional. I started to practice using the stuff that Fred showed us, the animating was simple and easy to use, it will make future projects that are worked on a lot easier. I also started to play around with particle systems, seeing as Fred said that they'll make the game look a lot better. I found them really fun and interesting to use, especially that fact that you can use sprite sheet animations with them. So far I've only looked into using them to giving the feeling of wind.
Blender in the industry
Will I be able to use Blender or will I have to migrate to 3ds max? So far the only person that I know of who is in the industry and that I know uses Blender is Frederick Fitzpatrick, because he's mentioned it a few times and I've seen him tweet pictures of him using the software.
Will I be able to use Blender or will I have to migrate to 3ds max? So far the only person that I know of who is in the industry and that I know uses Blender is Frederick Fitzpatrick, because he's mentioned it a few times and I've seen him tweet pictures of him using the software.
I've been watching some tutorials on how to code in Unity using C#. Learning how to make variables and the basics of coding. I found out how to make the camera stop moving once it got too far to the edge of the level. I also learned about basic Collision detection, how to detect when the player has fallen off the level and to put them back at the spawn location. (I also learned that 2d colliders do not work with 3D colliders.) Next I would like to learn how to switch between animations, like when the player moves, or when the player collides with an object. |
Professional Portfolios
http://www.everettgunther.com/
http://johnvalentiart.com/
http://timspanjer.com/
http://www.everettgunther.com/
http://johnvalentiart.com/
http://timspanjer.com/